Ring-measured devices are widely used by jewelers in making and selling rings to their customers. These devices typically consist of short metal (hollow or solid) or plastic sticks having no flexibility. The sticks are generally shaped in a conical fashion and indexed sequentially in quarter or half sizes, generally from one to fifteen (1-15). The size of a given ring can be ascertained by introducing that ring over the stick and sliding it along the scale as far as possible until a maximum indicia is reached. The size of the ring can therefore be ascertained simply by noting the position of the ring with respect to the scale.
Where the size of the finger is not known and no ring is available that indicates size, a set of gauge rings is usually used to ascertain the size of the finger. The gauge rings are generally formed to metal and are arranged in order of their diameters from the smallest to the largest. By selecting one gauge ring after another, the appropriate size can be gauged when a proper fit is obtained. The gauge rings themselves may be marked with size indicia or alternatively, the size of the selected gauge ring may be ascertained by using a ring measuring device as illustrated above.
The devices heretofore described cannot accurately measure the size of a non-circular ring. Because they are made of inflexible or non-yieldable material, these devices are not capable of conforming to out-of-round ring shapes. Most rings actually sold by jewelers are not preferably circular but instead have a flattened portion at the set of the ring. Even if a ring was perfectly circular when sold imperfections are bound to occur with continued wear since the human finger is generally not circular itself. An attempt to address these difficulties may be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 467,382 issued to Mortimer L, Clopton (the "Clopton Ring Gauge"). The Clopton Ring Gauge was constructed from a single sheet of flexible elastic material and wrapped upon itself to provide a hollow, cone-shaped body. The body was provided with a scale indicating the different sizes of rings to be measured. In principle, the Clopton Ring Gauge was intended to yield and conform itself to a ring brought in frictional contact with it and to return to its initial condition when the ring was withdrawn.
The Clopton Ring Gauge, however, falls short of its own objectives. Its cross-sectional design contemplates a series of concentric circles, one wrapped around another, which yield to the inner surface of a ring so that the proper size can be ascertained. While this design does afford flexibility, it does not enable accurate measurement of a non-circular ring. To the contrary, the area of the Clopton Ring Gauge in frictional contact with the ring would inherently tend to remain more round than the shape of the inner surface of the ring being measured. Furthermore, the local contact area is progressively less likely to return to its initial condition with each instance of additional usage. Indeed, the Clopton Ring Gauge's resistance to local distortion is inversely related to the amount of force used to push the ring up the scale of the Ring Gauge. In other words, the stronger the force, the greater the distortion and the smaller the likelihood that the Ring Gauge will return to its initial condition.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a ring sizer which can distort locally to accommodate any ring shape while resisting distortion sufficiently to allow measurement of the true size of the ring. It is also an object of this invention to provide a ring sizer which reduces or eliminates the inaccuracies of measurements performed with conventional ring-measuring devices.